


Post Haec Omne Tempus

by softiebee



Series: 30 Day Cheesy Trope Challenge [6]
Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: 30 Day Cheesy Tropes Challenge, Florist AU, Florist Ronan, M/M, pynch - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-08
Updated: 2016-10-08
Packaged: 2018-08-20 04:32:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8236177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/softiebee/pseuds/softiebee
Summary: Ronan runs a flower shop and has eyes for the world's prettiest plant boy employee.





	

**Author's Note:**

> things about this au:  
> 1(a): opal is a teenager. as in, 15 or 16.  
> 1(b): opal is a moody teen™  
> 2: adam and ronan are both in their 20s.   
> 3: chainsaw has definitely been "re-named" something affectionate and poetic by the shop's regulars, but neither she or ronan pay any attention.  
> 4: adam is a total hipster. and also wears glasses. (au actually stands for Adam Unerd)  
> 5: ronan's shop sells flowers but also every other kind of plant (e.g. large bonsai trees)
> 
> from the prompt: florist
> 
> this is a work of fiction. all characters belong to maggie steifvater and the raven cycle series.

There were so many things Ronan loved about the shop in the mornings. The smell, the light, the calm. The silence. The film of dew or frost on the walls of the greenhouse. The routine he had of measuring and cutting and counting, the feeling of being the first to step into a crisp day, still sharp from the night.

He loved the shop in the afternoon, too, when people had been trickling in and out from the street, but he tended to stay in his workspace then, taking care of orders and arrangements. Opal had talked him into this a while back, and now she ran the counter, sitting easily at the cash register with her hooves hidden in boots under her stool. 

They had another employee, besides just the two of them. He was the other thing Ronan loved about the shop. It was hard not to - Ronan had tried, in the beginning, and he knew. There was something soft in his dusty ginger hair and smatterings of freckles, something captivating about the turn of his cheek and the line of his throat. During the day, he worked in the shelves, tending the plants as much as the people. Ronan was half-convinced that he was the reason they did so well. Flowers were pretty, but so was Adam Parrish.

He was walking in now, bag slung over his shoulder, shirt buttoned up to the collar. Something about him always made Ronan’s mouth go dry. “Morning,” he greeted, and Ronan jerked his chin - their usual morning exchange, punctuated by the hiss of the coffee machine behind Opal’s counter. Adam slipped the strap of his bag onto a hook in the back room and took out his glasses from the pocket, sliding them over his face with practiced ease. 

“What do we have today? Big orders?”

In response, Ronan reached into his pocket and pulled out a worn notebook, flipping it open to a list of orders and dates. “Wedding coming up soon,” he observed. “Lots of white roses and some blue lilies. If you want to set up displays today, I can start cutting stems.”

“Sounds alright.” Adam stifled a yawn with lis hand, nudging his glasses up with his thumb at the tail end. Ronan had seen this series of movements a thousand times at least, but he still watched, still tore his gaze away at the last second, nodding at Adam before stepping back to the staircase.

It was light now, and the shop was set to open in a few hours. This was the part of Ronan’s day that would go one way or another - either Opal would get up and shower, or she would kick several pillows across the room and refuse to rise until the sun was well and fully streaming through her window. He climbed the stairs at the back of the shop to the small apartment they had above and opened Opal’s door. Chainsaw flew towards him, a dark blur in a dark room, and he let her land on his shoulder, walking over to Opal’s bed. 

“Kid. Wake up.” He kicked the mattress lightly, and the lump in the middle that he supposed was Opal grunted and rolled further into itself. “Come on. The coffee’s out already.”

“Fuck _off_.” Opal kicked a leg out at him, but he stepped back in time to miss being clipped by her hoof. She twisted around so that she was pressed against the wall and peered at him with squinted eyes. “It’s too early for this.”

Ronan leaned forward and pinched her knee, hard, narrowly avoiding another kick. “I pay you, you know.”

“Not enough,” she muttered, but stood up anyway, dragging the covers with her past Ronan towards the bathroom. The shower squeaked and then started, and Ronan went back down into the shop to cut thorns off white roses.

-

It was later in the afternoon that someone spilled something. This happened at least once a day, but so rarely was it accompanied by the telltale tinkling of an adobe pot and panicked whispers of “ _Shit, shit, shit,_ ” that Ronan had to take a deep breath before looking around the corner. He had been adjusting the water pipes in the back, and the sound had come from the aisle in front of him, where Adam had organized potted bonsai trees by size and weight.

“Can I help- oh.” Abruptly coming to a halt, Ronan took in the scene in front of him: two bags of potting soil, a new ceramic pot, the shattered remains of the previous pot, a large lump of soil and roots still attached to the tree, bleeding bits of dirt into the cracks in the floor, and Adam, halfway on his back in the middle of it all.

“I’m so sorry,” Adam started, trying to push himself up, but his hands slipped on the wet tile and he fell back, cracking his head on the floor. “ _Fuck_. I was trying to re-pot this one. The old pot had a big crack up the side, and it kept falling apart whenever I tried to pick it up, and- _Jesus Christ_.” He cradled the back of his head with both hands, hunching over his knees. “Here.” Ronan stretched out a hand towards him, and Adam took it, allowing Ronan to pull him to his feet and help him to the back room. He pointed him towards a chair and retrieved a first-aid kit from the corner. Opal looked around the corner.

“You okay in there?”

“He’ll be fine,” Ronan replied. “Get ice.” To the handful of concerned customers, he said, “He had a bit of a trip. Be careful of the spill in aisle eight,” and turned back to Adam, tilting his head forwards in his hands. A large bump was already starting to form, and from the sharp inhale of Adam’s breath, it was heavily bruised at best and a concussion at worst. Opal reappeared in the doorway with a bag of ice and a rag, handing them both to Ronan before returning to her seat behind the counter. She watched them both anxiously, fingers twisting in her lap. 

Adam, however, seemed less worried than stressed. He kept pushing his hands over his eyes and apologizing, and Ronan kept shaking his head and saying things like _don’t worry about it_ and _it’s fine_ and _does this hurt when I touch it?_

WebMD, according to Opal, said that the symptoms of a concussion were slow cognition and nausea, but once Adam had had some water, he was standing again. “I’m sorry,” he said again, and Ronan snapped back, “Christ, Adam, if you keep saying that I’m going at actually hold it against you.”

“I _am_.”

“It doesn’t matter. It’s a _tree_. The roots are fine, it’s just the pot that’s broken. You’re the one with the damn egg growing out of your head.”

Adam touched the lump gingerly. “Is it really that bad?”

“It looks like you have a malformed conjoined twin trying its best to escape your body.”

He managed a weak smile. “Graphic.”

“Just stop apologizing.”

-

The next day, Ronan had arranged six baskets of blue lilies by the time Adam came in to work. He was a little bit late, but he was carrying three card cups, which meant fresh coffee and not the instant piss that came from Opal’s machine. Ronan accepted one as if it was a newborn child and popped off the travel cap, letting the bitter aroma fill his workroom before taking a scalding gulp. He could feel Adam watching him and looked up, raising his eyebrows. 

“This some kind of thanks for yesterday?”

“I guess,” Adam said. He was wearing a cardigan today, with frayed edges, and his fingers would not stop pulling at the loose threads on the hem. It was terribly distracting. “I had to sleep on my side last night.”

“Oh, really? I always sleep on my side. The last time I slept on my back, I started snoring, and Opal dropped an ice cube down my throat.”

Adam’s laugh was sudden and surprising. Ronan had heard it before, but always quieter and more reserved. This seemed more loose, wide open, and shocked Adam as much as it had him; a red flush crept over his tan cheeks and aftershock laughs kept bubbling out of his throat. Ronan thought he might pass out.

“The bump’s gone down a lot today,” Adam continued, once he had gotten a little bit of a hold on himself. His face was still pink, and his eyes were watering a little bit. “I’m not sure what else I should do.”

“Let me see,” Ronan said automatically, leaning forward in his chair. 

“What, did you do a double major in head trauma and floral arrangements?”

“Maybe I did. _Sit._ ” 

Adam sat.

Pushing his fingers into Adam’s hair, Ronan searched around for the bruise, guided mostly by the sharp hisses of discomfort that came from Adam’s mouth when he pressed in a certain area. The bump had gone down considerably, but it was still a little swollen. 

“Are you in a lot of pain?” Ronan’s hands were still in Adam’s hair; he was pretending he wasn’t using this as an excuse, but God, Adam’s hair was soft and light, and if Ronan hadn’t thought about this before, he would now. 

“Not really,” Adam said, and Ronan could feel his voice in the back of his skull. He nodded. 

“Good. If you start to get a headache, let me know, and we can switch for the day. Drink an assload of water.” At this, Adam started to laugh again, and Ronan felt the corner of his mouth twitch. “I’m serious here, Parrish. There’s still a chance it could be a concussion.”

“ _Ronan_. I don’t have a concussion.”

“Drink the water anyway.”

Adam yanked a water bottle from the case under Ronan’s desk and twisted off the cap, turning around and holding Ronan’s stare as he started to chug it. Whatever point he had been trying to prove was immediately lost on Ronan, who felt his eyes being drawn by the incessant movement of Adam’s neck, of his jaw, but wouldn’t let himself look away. Finally, Adam drained the bottle and crumpled it in one hand, tossing it into Ronan’s wastebasket.

“Happy?”

“You will be when you don’t have a concussion later.”

“I don’t think I can have a concussion later if I don’t have one now,” Adam said, then yawned and pushed his glasses up on his nose. 

-

At one point, Ronan caught Adam watching him work from the aisles.

At one point, Adam put a hand on Ronan’s back to get past him in a tight aisle.

At one point, Ronan was looking at Adam so hard he almost tripped over his own shoes.

Jesus. If this kept up, Ronan would have to fire either Adam or himself. 

-

The next day, there was rain, and rain meant greenhouse work. Ronan loved to be in the greenhouse on rainy days. It was just cool enough that he could wear a sweater with the sleeves pulled up, and there was no silence; instead, the rain tripped and dripped on the glass to fill every gap with movement. Today, he was making new soil mixtures and re-potting bonsai saplings, but he couldn’t focus. There was too much space to think, and he filled all his thinking space with Adam.

Opal came out to see him around noon with a wet sandwich on a plate for him. “You should eat,” she said, putting it next to him on his bench. “Shop’s not busy today.” Ronan shrugged and flicked soil at her.

“Dirty hands.”

She sat with him for a while, taking the saplings out of their plastic containers and carefully brushing loose soil from their tender roots, before she got bored and left again. There was about a 40 percent chance she was behind the counter, Ronan estimated, but if someone needed to be rung up, Adam was there, too, and he knew how to work the register and account books. The door squeaked open, and Ronan raised an eyebrow. Apparently Adam had abandoned his post, too, and now he came in on soft feet, careful to avoid brushing any of the flowers. Ronan noted his look of wonder and said, “Haven’t you been in here when it’s raining?”

“No.” Adam craned his neck back to look at the high ceiling, partially covered by several layers of hanging plants. “I don’t think I’ve been in here when it’s not raining, either, actually.” Shaking his head, Ronan tried to think of something to say and couldn’t. He was short-circuited by Adam’s skin and hair and hands, by his glasses, by the button up he was wearing today - blue printed ravens, cuffed at the sleeves. Instead, he went back to measuring soil, and Adam began to wander. Every so often, Ronan would look up, and he would be crouched by a stem of ivy, or perched on the first couple rungs of Ronan’s ladder to reach a hanging ball of Russian sage.

Eventually, he ran out of soil, and just watched Adam.

“It’s kind of cold in here,” Adam commented from across the greenhouse. He was bent over a new batch of alyssums, and Ronan could see the way he rubbed his arms.

“Is it?”

“For me. You’re wearing a sweater.”

“That I am. How observant.” Without thinking, he stood and walked to Adam, leaning against the wall next to the cases of alyssums. “Trying to share body heat?” 

“Something like that,” Ronan said, and then Adam pulled him in at the waist. 

-

Kissing Adam Parrish was overwhelming. Cold. Warm. Soft. Sharp. Skin, lips, breath, hands. Ronan couldn’t keep track, so he stopped trying. There was something about the way Adam moved his mouth, moved his head, moved his nose, something about the way he breathed in between kisses, something about Ronan’s fingers in his hair and Adam’s curled in Ronan’s sweater, there was _something-_

-

“You’re cold, too.”

“Warm me up, then.”

-

The next morning, Opal came downstairs before Ronan went up to wake her.

“You two are fucking disgusting,” she said tiredly. Then, as an afterthought: “It took you long enough.”

Adam leaned his forehead on Ronan’s shoulder and laughed, wide open.

**Author's Note:**

>  ~~this was technically posted at 12:30 am est but let's ignore that~~  
>  this was so cute to write! i have a hard time doing aus as one shots, so it was good practice and turned out better than i expected. tomorrow's prompt (day 7) will be from the prompt: outsider pov
> 
> comments/kudos make my day!! you can find me on tumblr at c-beswater.


End file.
